A choice Christians can't afford to make
By Michael Young
Daily Star staff
Thursday, October 05, 2006
In the increasingly small canvas that is Lebanese Christian politics, the
last 10 days have been telling. Two Sundays ago, the Lebanese Forces leader
Samir Geagea presided over a high political mass bringing together his
followers in Harissa, in an effort to regain lost ground among his
coreligionists. And last Saturday, Michel Aoun organized a spirited riposte
at a gathering for the wartime displaced, in Hadeth, where he revived
familiar tropes about Christian marginalization. That both men are fishing
in the same pond was only half of what made their exertions interesting; the
other is that they are moving their community in the wrong direction.
Take Geagea's Harissa speech. The Lebanese Forces leader reaffirmed the
centrality of the Taif Accord as a way out of Lebanon's divisions, which was
to his credit. He well knows that the document of national reconciliation
was built on a redistribution of power away from the Christians, and that
its abuse by the postwar Syrian-led apparat only made it more antipathetic
to his own electorate, as well as to Aoun's. So it took, and will continue
to take, audacity on his part to back Taif. The proof, however, will be in
whether Geagea can help persuade Christians to move toward political
deconfessionalism, at least in Parliament - with compensation coming
elsewhere, perhaps through the creation of a confessional Senate.

But did Geagea really need to mention that, before Hizbullah's resistance in
the South, the Lebanese resistance started in Ain al-Remmaneh? He was
referring to how the Christian militias fought the Palestinians and their
local allies there at the beginning of the Civil War in 1975. For the
Lebanese Forces, or more accurately its predecessor militias, that moment
was a seminal one. But Ain al-Remmaneh has a different meaning today than it
did three decades ago. Today the quarter is a front line against the Shiite
community, a place where Christians and Shiites stand across from each other
with barely concealed distaste. In conjuring up that image, Geagea,
intentionally or not, substituted the Shiites for the Palestinians.

This harshening of the ideological dividing line is to be expected from a
leader who still evokes misgiving among many Christians. Geagea's war
record, like that of the other former militia leaders, is one he will not
easily break away from, so he has had to recast his past in light of present
realities. In this, Geagea has benefited from the fact that he has been able
to recruit among mostly young followers, with no memory of the war; that
Aoun has lost support thanks to what many see as his unnatural alliance with
Hizbullah; and that Lebanon's Christians are facing an existential crisis of
historical proportions, with no clear sense of where they are heading.
Geagea's problem, however, is that those very same realities that feed
Christian angst threaten to undermine the best means the Lebanese Forces
have for alleviating them. Geagea's approach has been based on an alliance
with the March 14 movement, but more specifically with the Hariri camp. In
the sectarian political context, this has effectively translated into an
alliance with the Sunnis; and, with Geagea so keen to mark off his territory
and ways from Hizbullah, a de facto alliance against the Shiites.

Aoun has behaved in much the same single-minded way, though leaning in the
other direction. His followers will applaud when the general describes
himself as the custodian of a national project, however the sectarian
rhetoric among Aounist supporters is as hardened as among other groups and
communities. And it just so happens that it has been directed mainly against
the Sunnis - or more specifically against what was deemed to be Sunni
haughtiness under the late Rafik Hariri, helping prop up a Syrian order that
marginalized both Aoun and the Christians. One can debate the accuracy of
this interpretation, but it certainly did no good for Saad Hariri to back an
election law last summer that confirmed the worst Christian fears in this
regard - fears that Aoun later exploited to justify shifting his movement
away from Hariri and closer to Hizbullah.

So, what we effectively have today is the two largest Christian parties
disagreeing over many things, but most importantly over their relationship
with the Sunni and Shiite communities. This is a recipe not only for
ensuring that Christians are sidelined further, it shows an utter absence of
clarity about where the community stands in Lebanon's future.

The irony is that when he returned to Lebanon, Aoun had a different view. It
took months for him to heave himself into the "Shiite camp," and among his
entourage he had at first made the sensible argument that Christians should
not take sides when it came to the Sunni-Shiite divide. But like so much
else the general has said in the past, this was forgotten when he concluded
that his presidential aspirations required taking sides: Hizbullah suddenly
seemed a necessary patron in the face of strong resistance to an Aoun
presidency from the March 14 coalition and the Maronite patriarch.

But can the Christians remain neutral? Being neither here nor there, neither
in March 8 nor March 14, is hardly feasible. Neutrality can often be an
anteroom to irrelevance. There is also the fact that, for now, March 14 is
the only serious domestic force denying a return of Syrian hegemony over
Lebanon, while Hizbullah's agenda is too tied in with those of Iran and
Syria to provide any real reassurance of Lebanese independence.

That's why any redefinition of a Christian role requires two steps: for all
the parties, including the Lebanese Forces, to open systematic contacts with
all political and religious groups, to the exclusion of none, even if the
ride is a bumpy one. That includes Hizbullah. But also for the Aounists to
terminate their Pollyannaish repetition that Syria has left Lebanon for
good. Nothing in the behavior of Bashar Assad's regime in the past year
suggests this is true. Lebanon as a sovereign entity from Syria remains in
danger, thanks partly to the consent of Assad's local allies, notably
Hizbullah. The aim of a Christian-Shiite dialogue should be, in part, to
anchor Hizbullah in the national consensus on relations with Syria.

A second step requires defining where Christians expect to be in the coming
decades. In seeking to remain equidistant from the Sunnis and Shiites,
Christians need, first, to shape a philosophical underpinning guiding this.
It must be defined by the community as a whole, through an exchange of
ideas, a national Christian round-table, and probably some founding document
that all can refer to. The high points of such a document must include a
flexible interpretation of Taif, leaving the door open to consensual moves
toward partial or total deconfessionalization; a statement of principle that
Christians will be a bridge between Lebanon's other communities; and a
broader vision for how Lebanese and other Middle Eastern Christians see
their future in a region where religious intolerance is on the rise.
Such a multifaceted approach is far more advisable than what we have today:
Christian mobilization through polarization, of which both Geagea and Aoun
are guilty. But most important, Lebanon cannot long last as it is if the
Christians feel they have to choose between Muslim partners. For them all
Muslims are partners, and must continue to be.
**Michael Young is opinion editor of THE DAILY STAR.